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“I’m recalling correctly from my high school days, “SxE” refers to “Straight Edge” — i.e. those who abstain from drugs & alcohol, dig bands like Earth Crisis, & notify the world of the choice by means of Xes drawn on their knuckles.”

The vast majority of conspiracy theorists are not anti-semites. Also, there are a lot of Jewish conspiracy theorists. Racists, of all types, do not deserve to have a balloon of their own among all those respectable strange people anyway.

Not saying you are wrong, but it doesn’t jive with my experience with the breed on the internet. I once hypothesized that the distance between any problem in the world and the Zionist global power brokers could be bridged in three sentences or less by your average conspiracy theorist. I’ve seen it done with cold fusion, I’ve seen it done with the Fed, I’ve seen it done with international aid, and of course deployment of US forces abroad.

They are not respectable wack jobs, but they should be included in the Codex.

Jason, There seems to exist a sub-strata of people who use and often twist conspiracy theories to attack the racial/religious groups that are the targets of their malice. Much that goes on in the political world does involve conspiracy: The creation of the Fed. certainly was. See: “The Creature From Jekyll Island; A Second Look at the Federal Reserve” by Edward Griffin. (btw, although some Jews were among the key players in this episode, the creation of the Fed could hardly, with accuracy, be called “a conspiracy of Jews”. The term “Jewish conspiracy” can never be an accurate one.) Reagan conspired with the Pope to hasten the fall of the totalitarian regime in Poland and the other Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. See: “Reagan’s War” by Peter Schweizer. A neoconservative clique, many of whom are Jews, had worked long and hard on behalf of the case for the Iraq war. See: http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html

The bigots, in this case anti-semites, committ the logical falacy of pointing to some conspiracies in which Jews were involved or even dominant and allege that this shows that “Jews want to take over the world” or “Jews are dishonest” or “Evil” or “Satans agents”, and all manner of nonsense. This is also tragically ironic in light of the fact that there have been political conspiracies, in which Jews have been among the conspirators, that have victimized Jews by the multitudes. The bigots, when they invoke conspiracy theories, of course, give conspiracy analysis a “bad name”. But, when we confront the bigots by falling back on knee-jerk attacks against conspiracy theories and ignore the logical fallacy the bigots commit when they extend the percieved guilt (real or not) of the conspirators to the target group as a whole. Also, when we belittle all political conspiracy analysis we often allow political power to go unchallanged.

Dude: A LARPer is a Live Action Role Player. These are the breed of gamer who actually take one step above and beyond the traditonal sit-down paper and pencil role-playing-games like D&D and such. They’ll dress up like their “character” and wander about the real world having pre-designed adventures. Combat is usually settled via “paper-rock-scissiors” since dice are incoveient. LARPers usually confine their schannegins to gaming/sci-fi/comics conventions (e.g. GenCon, Origins, Waukesha ComicCon 3000, etc.), but I’ve heard of groups that do it weekly.

Me? I prefer good old fashion gaming: playing in the basement of the Friendly Local Game Store (TM) where the rest of he world can’t mock me.

If I’m recalling correctly from my high school days, “SxE” refers to “Straight Edge” — i.e. those who abstain from drugs & alcohol, dig bands like Earth Crisis, & notify the world of the choice by means of Xes drawn on their knuckles. I think the term was coined by the singer from Minor Threat back in the 80s.

Julian is correct, SxE refers to straight edge, a drug and alcohol free subculture within the hardcore punk scene. Underage kids going to shows at DC bars or clubs serving alcohol in the early 80s got an X marked on their hands.

The X became a symbol of pride and these days people often get it tattooed on. DC hardcore legends Minor Threat have a song called Straight Edge that is something of an anthem to the scene, as is their tune Out Of Step (“don’t smoke/’don’t drink/don’t fuck/at least I can fuckin’ think” etc.). Earth Crisis are a 90s band that advocated ELF-type animal and environmental “rights,” as well as militant veganism and a violent anti-drug stance (their fans have attacked smokers at shows, etc.). They were also pro-life, throwing something of a monkey wrench into the otherwise lefty SxE scene.